"Muhammad: his life based on the earliest sources from all other serious Prophetic biographies. It it is fair to say Lings often has more imagination than knowledge of what he describes and never takes to heart the absolute prohibition of fiction in Islam with regard to the Prophet. Consequently, his constant embroidery detracts from the reliability of his book and, much as it is meant to enhance reading, brings it down to the romance level from which its title-page homage to “the earliest sources” had promised to exempt it. There are two or three more momentous misinterpretations in Muhammad: his life based on the earliest sources. He defended them in reprint after reprint by beefing up his footnotes with references he thought provided enough justification. One of them is the “lightly clad” Zaynab scene – in his defense an error of taste that predates him; but an error, nevertheless, that “betokens ignorance of the immense rights and merits of the Prophet” according to Qadi Abu Muhammad al-Qushayri al-Maliki as cited by Qadi Iyad. Another such misinterpretation is the “Kaba icon” episode.

Lings is at his weakest in one of his final chapters entitled “The Degrees” (LXXXI), which is replete with incautious interpretations or misreporting of Quran and Hadith. Inherent in the reality of degrees and levels in the Religion is the notion of the elite of humankind, the Believers, and the elite of the Believers, the Friends of God. However, Lings turns this notion into a skewed elitism which characterizes the massive majority of people as blind (LXXXI, 329, 3): “Degrees of superiority are also implied by the Revelation in its mention of the heart. In speaking of the majority, it says: Not blind are the eyes, but blind are the hearts within the breasts.” The commentaries are clear that it is not “the majority” at all who are meant but the disbelievers in general, and the disbelievers of Mecca at the time of the Prophet in particular.

Lings’ thoroughly confused attempt at forcing those of the right, the righteous, the slaves of God and the foremost into his own special concept of a spiritual hierarchy (LXXXI, 329, 2) stems from a similar penchant for speculative originality in disregard of qualified sources.

Among the oddest leitmotifs of the book are Lings’ preoccupation with and free dramatizing of physical beauty. Khadijah“knew that she herself was still beautiful” (XII, 35, 1); Zaynab bint Jahsh was “a girl of out standing beauty” (XIII, 40, 1); “Ruqayyah was the most beautiful of their daughters and one of the most beautiful women of her generation” (XXIV, 70,1); ... and so on and so forth.

Lings advocates applying the title of Furqan not only to the Quran but to “every revealed Scripture” (XXV, 76, 1). This is arguable if he means the word furqan in a metaphorical generic sense of separating truth from error. However, it is fair to say he means it literally so as to deny the exclusivity of the Quran as an universal Message among all revealed Scriptures and also the exclusivity of its abrogating status of all other Scriptures for all time, since he actually grants neither superiority nor abrogating-status to the Prophet Mu^ammad œ over all other Prophets and Messengers (LVIII, 212, 1). These are well-known “Perennialist” deviations in flat contradiction of Quran, Sunna, and Consensus."

Source:
A CRITICAL READING OF MARTIN LINGS' MUHAMMAD: HIS LIFE BASED ON THE EARLIEST SOURCES, Foreword to the first Swedish translation; (c) GF Haddad 2005

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